Therapeutic agents for animals, for example equines, bovines, canines, felines, ovines, and porcines, suffer from numerous drawbacks for a variety of reasons. For example, injectable formulations, which may be preferred because they provide rapid onset of activity, are most preferably administered in an environment of cleanliness to prevent infections at the injection site. However, with domesticated animals this may be difficult to ensure in a typical barn, farm, field or racetrack environment where such injectable formulations may be administered. A further drawback of an injectable formulation is that a typical injectable therapeutic may suffer from a relatively short duration of activity. Oral dosing formulations for animals suffer from different drawbacks, in that the animal can spit the formulation out of its mouth before it is ingested, resulting in a loss of the full dosage. In a circumstance where the oral formulation is administered by intubation, the dosing may suffer from variability of bioavailability due to the inherent and unique characteristics of each animal's digestive system, i.e., the amount of food in the animal's stomach, the length of time since its last feeding, and the animal's levels of digestive enzymes, which may vary due to other environmental conditions, etc. Further limitations of existing formulations include stability of the active ingredient in the formulation, and possible inadvertent or incorrect dosing of the human administrator with the drug substance.
Most veterinary therapeutics are off-shoots of drugs developed for humans rather than being specifically developed for the unique characteristics of a specific animal, for example equines, bovines, canines, felines, ovines, and porcines. Due to the high costs associated with developing formulations tailored precisely for animals, and obtaining regulatory approval of such formulations for animals, many veterinarians have a limited repertoire of drugs to utilize in the therapy of various animal diseases. Thus, the FDA allows “extra-label use” of human drugs. See, “Extra-label Drug Use in Veterinary Medicine”, available from www.fda.gov/Anima1Veterinary/NewsEvents/FDAVeterinarianNewsletter/ucm1_00268.htm. This practice has resulted in formulations of human drugs by compounding pharmacists at the request of veterinarians, i.e, so-called “custom compounding,” in order to enlarge therapeutic armamentarium available to veterinarians. See, for instance, the brochure published by the FDA entitled “Veterinary Compounding” available from www.avma.org/issues/drugs/compounding/veterinary_compounding_brochure.asp
Therefore, there exists a need to provide improved therapeutic methods for animals, for example equines, bovines, ovines, canines, felines and porcines which obviate many of the disadvantages and side effects of the commonly used injectable and oral formulations.
There further exists a need to provide methods for the treatment of animals, for example equines, bovines, canines, felines, ovines, and porcines with drug products which give an earlier onset of action, along with a concomitant reduction in side effects including risk of infection at injection sites or bioavailability issues resultant from the absorption of the drug from the digestive tract of the animal.
There also exists a need to provide methods which enable treatment of the animal patient which reliably and predictably provides for regulatory clearance of the drug. For example, in animals participating in competition, the drug clears the animal's system so that it may undergo treatment without drug residues remaining which would disqualify it from competition. Since the clearance of a drug administered via the methods of the present disclosure is more rapid, the animal may only need to discontinue therapy for a relatively short period of time, thus minimizing the effect of discontinuance for several days, resulting in a re-establishment or increased severity of the disease under treatment.
Disclosed herein are animal treatment methods and compositions, for example for the treatment of animals, for example equines, bovines, canines, felines, ovines, and porcines. Various embodiments comprise administration of a therapeutic agent into the bloodstream of the animal via a formulation administered via the oral cavity. In various embodiments, a majority of the formulation may be absorbed prior to reaching the gastric mucosa. In certain embodiments, the formulation may be adapted for animals, for example equines, bovines, canines, felines, ovines, and porcines to dissolve in a relatively short period of time, e.g., 75 seconds or less. Such administration of the formulation may, in at least certain embodiments, result in faster onset of the therapy, diminished occurrences of the side-effects due to non-uniformity of bioavailability of the active agent, and/or more accurate dosing, which may, in at least some embodiments, result in dose lowering. Further, in at lease some embodiments, such administration may result in a greater portion of the therapeutic agent actually being directly introduced systemically into the circulatory system for its therapeutic effect.
Also disclosed herein are methods for the treatment and control of various diseases afflicting animals, for example equines, bovines, canines, felines, ovines, and porcines, with improved safety for the both the animal and the person administering the therapeutic agent.
In at least certain exemplary embodiments, the compositions and methods are useful for administration to humans.